Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Another consequence of obstructing immigration reform...

I am sure that this post will draw the usual claim that the farmers should pay Americans more. That is awfully easy for them to say - they are not the people who have to meet that farmer's payroll.

This generosity with other people's money is the kind of stuff I'd expect from the left, who is always willing to raid somebody's wallet to pass out goodies for votes. I guess the right is willing to do the same. Obviously many of these people have not heard of the commandment that goes, "Thou shalt not steal."

Do our farmers matter? Do we want to grow our own food, or will we see immigration hard-liners do for our food supply what environmentalists did for our energy independence?

5 comments:

Holy Chicken Little, Batman! The sky is falling! The sky is falling! The pears are falling! The government actually makes a tiny bit of a half-hearted effort to enforce the law and you would think the world was coming to an end.

So what this pear farmer is admitting (and I'm assuming that you agree with), is that the American farmer simply cannot survive without subsidies from the federal government. I don't think anything has done more to hurt the productivity of our farmers over the last seventy years than subsidies from the feds. These subsidies come in all forms. Price controls, tariffs, trade barriers, tax breaks, buying of surplus crops, payment for allowing land to lie untilled, and non-enforcement of immigration laws.

You seem to be arguing that the subsidizing of the ag industry is a good thing (I've heard some of the arguments supporting this position and they seem pretty weak). However, your support for ag subsidies is particularly ironic as you also complain about those who are "willing to raid somebody's wallet". You know what? I don't like pears. Why should I have to subsidize the pear farmers? Heck, at the end of the article the guy freely admits that his orchard would be more productive as a hay field.

Not sure where you guys stand, but this conservative would rather we enforce the current laws on our books, end subsidies to all farmers, and then let the market work out what crops are grown and where they are grown.

But that's my point. At the wage these farmers are willing to pay, I will not go and pick pears. If the farmers cannot find anyone willing to pick their pears at their desired wage, they either need to raise their wage (and subsequently their prices) or get out of the pear farming business.

At the wage these farmers are willing to pay, I will not go and pick pears.

And at the price that you would be willing to pay for produce, those pears will not be in the store at the wage you're willing to accept. Maybe you're OK with agriculture being outsourced from this country, and making America as dependent on foreign food as it is on foreign oil. I'm not.